


The Length of Eternity

by SecondStarfall (beantiger)



Series: The Second Starfall Stories [42]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Cute, Cute Ending, Drunkenness, F/F, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Style, Falling In Love, Festivals, Fluff and Angst, Humor, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Female Character, Lesbian Character, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Pagan Festivals, Self-Indulgent, Skeletons, Spirits, Sweet, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:53:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24211657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beantiger/pseuds/SecondStarfall
Summary: Bones and boars and witches and the length of your name on your lover’s lips.***One witch gets drunk. Another doesn't. They have been in love for a very long time.
Relationships: Original Character(s)/Original Character(s), Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Series: The Second Starfall Stories [42]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1582975
Kudos: 10





	The Length of Eternity

**Author's Note:**

> **SUGGESTED REREADING:** This takes place a little while after ["The Underflames Seemed To Brighten"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23418682) and the later ["Untitled Helplessness #4."](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24628708) Taaron and Kirra are eighteen or so here, whereas they're fifteenish-sixteenish in earlier stories.
> 
> ✨ [[see the full SecStar timeline](https://secondstarfall.com/index.php/Official_Timeline) | [check out the SecStar wiki](https://secondstarfall.com/)] ✨

In the town of Kar Tor where the gods live underground, it is said that if one wishes to know the length of eternity, one must count the bones of everything that has ever died up to that very moment. And that very moment. And that one, too.

***

"Just come into the house, please. Into the—nope—into the _house,_ Kirra—"

Grunting like an old beast, her muscles burning, Taaron the apprentice dragged her best friend over the threshold and into the parlor. 

"I'm sorry I'm so moody," Kirra said, apropos of nothing. Mischievous, drunken giggles bubbled up from her lips. “Moody me, moody me.”

Taaron lay Kirra down on the divan, or rather flung her there as gently as she could. The commotion of the Grim Graysow Festival had long since faded away, and the house settled into silence. Taaron’s uncle the silversmith, fearing thieves, didn't believe in having help, and so when he was away (quite often these days) Taaron was alone. Normally she despised the expansiveness of the quiet house, but right now…

"You're so, so strong, Taaron," Kirra said. She looked like she was trying to wink.

“Well, that’s to be—no, stay on the divan, Kirra—that’s to be expected. Right?” Taaron lay a quilt over her, and Kirra went stiff and still as if crushed under the weight of a stone. “I’ve worked at a forge for almost a decade. If poorly.”

Kirra, with much effort, tapped her own chest with her finger. Her left eye remained stuck in a half-wink. “You don’t look strong. You look like me. But I know you are strong, dearest. Right here.” 

“Er. What does that mean,” Taaron said, flatly, though she smiled. Of course, she hadn’t expected to spend the Grim Graysow Festival alone, even with her uncle out of town; Kirra came down from the Brightest Manor almost daily to while away her hours in Kar Tor or the True Witchwood with Taaron. But that was just it—Taaron thought they would curl up in her room and read, or go trekking through the forest as always to watch the deer, or…something. Away from the festival’s clamor.

“I’m drunk, aren’t I?” Kirra asked.

“Extremely.”

Kirra’s voice fell to a conspiratorial whisper. “You could use your power to...to take it away. Use your syntax! Lay your hands on me!”

“I don’t think so. Drunkenness is all over the body, Kirra. I think my syntax only works when there’s an issue in one place.”

“I think you could do it, silly. I think you...”

Small, contented snores rose up behind Taaron as she sank to the floor, exhausted. She looked back once to see Kirra as snug as an old housecat, then allowed her bones to rest, pressing her palms to her eyes.

Her thoughts seemed to take shape and grow infinitely large around her.

***

In the town of Kar Tor where boars rule as kings, a young witch once told another: _I love you to the marrow in your bones._

***

The Grim Graysow Festival had been intensely long. It came just once in a lifetime, or so Taaron was told—the land-priests birthing a new protector, a new Grim, for the local church. But she hadn't really participated in the festival. At least, not the drinking-and-merrymaking part. The last time she’d gotten her fill of drink, she’d gotten into a mess of trouble.

So she merely chaperoned Kirra. But sometimes Kirra lacked true self-discipline. Only sometimes. For as long as Taaron had known her, she was mysterious like that. Every so often she grew wild like a catamount. Freely flowing wine seemed to have brought that out of her. 

And—

When Taaron had lost Kirra in the crowd, it was the inebriated wheelwright who had pointed her in the right direction: _You, smith child! Get your girl! She’s fall-down drunk, that one!_

Her girl.

Considering the words left her feeling weak, as if it was an incomprehensible subject—as if she’d tried to imagine eternity. She could not wrap her arms, so to speak, around the weight of it all. _Her girl, her girl._

The townsfolk noticed everything. They pretended they didn't—especially when it came to their local witches—but they did. They certainly noticed Taaron’s many failures as an apprentice.

She considered Kirra her very best friend, though, when alone, they often found each other’s lips. Nothing more than that, but it inevitably occurred. Taaron tried not to think about it too much, never _allowed_ herself to think about it, because when she did, there was eternity again. All its largeness. All its pressure.

Taaron got up, fetched Kirra a glass of water, and set it on the end table.

It wasn't as if Taaron thought Kirra couldn't love her—and here her face grew warm. She had merely written off romance, like all else in her life, as an utterly useless endeavor. She was not a good silversmith and she would probably fail as a witch, and love? A blankness dark as winter appeared in Taaron’s mind if she pictured her own future, let alone one shared with anyone except her aging uncle. She didn’t even know if she was beautiful or not. It didn’t seem relevant.

On the other hand, she imagined Kirra falling for some faraway prince and having a bundle of children, none of whom would use magic, but all of whom Kirra would love with everything she had. Kirra was, after all, an heir to the Moth-wing Throne, a ruler over witches everywhere. Taaron didn't know how she featured in that. She didn't think she would at all.

One day she thought she’d have to deal with it, in tears and horror and grief.

But— _her girl?_ She could almost see it, almost, if she made herself brave and dug deep...

Behind her Kirra threw her arm over her eyes. Her crooked nose twitched. A placid expression trickled over her features, the one that reminded Taaron how much she adored the witch-heir.

***

In the town of Kar Tor, it is said there is silver beneath the earth where people have chosen to leave their pain.

***

Outside in the dusk, the early summer weather was pleasant, and the revelry of the Grim Graysow Festival had faded into a few playful hollers in the street. Taaron slipped her hands in her pockets and strode towards the church. With every step she kicked up pigs’ ribs, teeth, jaws, little columns of spine, all cast-offs from the celebration.

No one could go inside the church at the moment, or even near it; the newborn Grim that would one day protect its grounds was still gathering its strength in the graveyard. Taaron simply stood on the hill overlooking the church, far away from the iron fence that surrounded it, and watched the stillness of the disheveled earth. She could almost feel the energy of the porcine being slowly making its way into the world.

Grims didn't listen to prayer and she felt ridiculous doing it, but nonetheless Taaron pressed her fist to her forehead and closed her eyes and thought: _If we are in love, may it be simple._

She counted to one hundred, then two hundred, and she was calm.

***

In the town of Kar Tor, anyone could find their strength. Anyone at all. And it would not take an eternity—not nearly so long.

***

When she returned to her uncle's house an hour later, she peered in on Kirra. From the divan Kirra opened one eye. Even in the dark, it glittered with that milky gray-green color that Taaron had always found spectacular.

“You went for a walk without me,” Kirra whined, though she flashed Taaron a sleepy grin.

“The last thing we need is the constable telling your mothers you’re drunk miles away from home, don’t you think?”

“You were gone forever.”

“I was not.” Taaron rested on the divan near her knees. “Can I—er—tell you something? It was so quiet out there—the great scary kind of quiet that fills up a place after a party. The kind that makes time sort-of...stop. You know? I suppose what I’m trying to say is—while I was walking I just wanted to hear you say my name. Does that make sense? I wanted it more than anything.”

Kirra pulled Taaron’s head against her own and peppered her scalp with kisses. “Taaron, Taaron, Taaron…”

She chanted it until she dozed off again, and Taaron allowed herself to imagine their future.

***

Bones and boars and witches and the length of your name on your lover’s lips.

All of this in the town of Kar Tor.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment or a kudos or whatever the heck if this tickled your fancy. There shall be more! ❤️
> 
> ✨ [[see the full SecStar timeline](https://secondstarfall.com/index.php/Official_Timeline) | [check out the SecStar wiki](https://secondstarfall.com/)] ✨
> 
>  **AUTHOR'S COMMENTARY:** Hello! I'm going to start giving fun little director's notes for each story so you get to know me and the work. I'm also going to go back and do this for all the other stories, too, so if you've been reading in order sometime in the future, this is where I started making commentary.
> 
> An interest in folklore + the mental image of Kirra being drunk + wanting a story about Taaron parsing her relationship with Kirra out = this tale. 
> 
> Who do the Kar Torians worship? A boar god. Which boar god? I think you know, but I don't think they know.
> 
> This is also the first story I dictated via speech recognition software from start to finish, and I'm extremely proud of it. Dictation allowed my word count to skyrocket, which is great, because Second Starfall is an expanded universe with a lot of characters. I have a proliferation of ideas, and not a lot of time and energy, so I want to be efficient. Enjoy this piece of F/F loveliness.


End file.
